Chapter 14: At Sea; Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Aboard
Safer than, well, just about everything
29.09.2023 - 29.09.2023 75 °F
"At Sea"
Friday, September 29, 2023
I am a "member" of Cunard's World Club. So is B4.
Upon completing your first Cunard voyage, you become a Silver Level member and you are rewarded with, well, essentially nothing. B4 is Silver and it even says so on her boarding card--the card you scan whenever you leave and when you return to the ship. When we have referred to "missing" guests in earlier posts, the crew knows those folks are missing because they scanned out but did not scan back in.
Upon completing two voyages or twenty nights, you automatically become a Gold level member. You are rewarded with a Gold Level Pin, $45 credit towards an on-board internet package on your next voyage and an invitation to a cocktail party. I am "Gold."
We are, in point of fact, invited to that cocktail party this evening at 7:00pm in the Queen's Room. Should we wish to have our photograph taken with Captain Aureliano Mazzella, we are to enter via Deck 2, Stairway B. Why would we not? (standing in line could be a good reason) We did have our picture taken with the Captain. What to do with it when we get home? The drawer of unframed photos is a definite possibility. We never have our picture taken on cruises, it is a definite profit center operation for Cunard. But this trip for whatever reason we had pics taken. Of course you cannot buy 2, you can buy 1 or 3. So we get our pic taken every night and hope to get 3 that we like before the cruise ends.
Upon completing seven voyages or seventy nights, you automatically become a Platinum level member. You are rewarded with a Platinum Level Pin, $80 internet credit, 20% off laundry charges, priority boarding at Brooklyn or Southampton, a complementary wine tasting, and an invitation to a senior officers on-board party. At the end of this voyage, I will have completed four voyages and fifty-five nights. We are scheduled to sail a crossing next June aboard the Queen Mary 2 and that will be six more nights, taking me to sixty-one. My guess is that I'll not achieve Platinum rank; but you never know.
Upon completing fifteen voyages or 150 nights, you automatically become a Diamond level member. You get a new pin, $135 internet credit and a free meal at one of the extra-charge dining venues on board plus all of the aforementioned accoutrements. i believe that our dining-room-mates Lisa and Michael are Diamond level members. Our 'Meal Mates' are great. We hit the lottery all being seated next to each other. Jo and Mary are part of the group too' Paul's little sisters as he affectionally refers to them. Lisa and Michael are big ballroom dancing fans. They've been dancing for years and make it look so easy. Cunard is the only line that has ballroom dancing every night, so Lisa and Michael are loyal Cunard cruisers. Ballroom dancing, along with playing the piano like Billy Joel, and flipping houses, are things i fantasize about doing. My guess is all of that will always be a fantasy rather than a reality. But it is fun to dream. Looking around, it is amazingly rare for us to spot a Diamond level boarding card.
What is also amazingly rare and, to us, inexplicable is: managing to fall off a cruise ship. Back on Tuesday, our last sea day, at precisely 9:00 as I was getting in my four-mile walk on Deck 3, the Captain came on the ship's pubic address system to announce a "Man Overboard" DRILL. He emphasized that this was only a training exercise for the crew and that nobody had gone overboard. "This is just a drill."
As the Bee Gees sang it:
Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me
Somebody help me, yeah
Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Not staying alive by going overboard on a cruise ship? I cannot fathom that. (I hope Michael is reading this; he will enjoy the pun)
A quick piece of research indicates that in twenty years a total of 386 people (out of the tens of millions of people who take cruise vacations) have reportedly gone overboard from cruise ships--between 2000 and 2020. Most who go overboard die. The Washington Post reported that a congressional hearing witness, cruise industry researcher Ross Klein, testified that “Even within the industry, they said back in 2012 and 2013 before Congress that they don’t keep track of this.” As rare as 'man overboard' actually is, Lisa and Michael were on the Cunard Holiday cruise out of NY in 2016 where it actually happened. About 12 hours out of port, a 74 year old woman was missing and assumed overboard. The ship turned around, the coast guard and helicopters descended and a search and rescue operation got started. Passengers were asked to participate by scanning the waters off of their balconies. The woman's husband was sequestered in his cabin with a guard outside the door. At the next port he was taken off for questioning. The woman's body eventually washed up around Atlantic City. If the husband threw her over, we'll never know. A pretty crazy story.
Gone overboard covers a lot of ground, er, water. Of those 386, some fell and some jumped. The fall itself could be fatal. The wake could suck you under water. You could get sliced and diced by one of our propellors. The cold water could result in hypothermia. You could get eaten by sharks. You could, well, you get the picture and it isn't a pretty one. One picture would capture that, however; there are lots of cameras. All of those horrible fates are preferable to being eaten by an alligator which is a great fear of mine. I am terrified by alligators. The minute we see one by either of our Florida homes, they both go up for sale immediately. Don't laugh, in Florida those alligators are alive and well and l living amongst us.
Falling overboard. That's going overboard for certain. I simply do not see how such a thing is possible.
The Post reported that “only a handful of cruise lines have installed man-overboard systems.” Statistics are that only 40 percent of overboard passengers are rescued. If the crew is aware that someone has gone overboard, it takes at least a mile to turn the average ship around. In most cases, nobody is aware of an overboard situation until someone traveling with them reports them missing which could be hours or even days later. My observation aboard ship is that some traveling companions might never report their roommate missing. Paul is being a bit cynical here about couples. True, cruises are close quarters for an extended time. It usually works out better if a couple truly enjoys being together. Most everyone is having a grand time. But not reporting someone missing? i can only think of one couple we have been around on this cruise where i think that would be true. Remember the pic of the woman playing cards - her husband would be a lot happier to not report her missing and walk off the ship alone.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, alcohol is reportedly involved in about sixty percent of cases. Alcohol is a leading source of ancillary revenue for cruise lines with many offering all-you-can-drink packages for sale. What could go wrong with that?
Here’s the opening paragraph of the Washington Post article from July 31 of this year:
As B4 and I look around this ship--and all the cruise ships we have sailed upon--we find it amazing that someone could fall overboard accidentally. There are railings and glass barriers to keep this from happening. Our view? If someone goes overboard on a cruise ship it is because (a) they were inebriated and/or otherwise intellectually impaired, (b) they were trying to commit suicide, (c) they were a victim of foul play or, (d) they were incredibly stupid--such as the "teen who jumped ship on a dare." Current statistics are that this year eleven people died in 10 overboard incidents.
One source says, "There were 32 reported cases of homicide, suspicious death, or missing persons aboard cruise ships from 2007 to 2021." If you're interested in a truly salacious depiction of this on a program of dubious veracity, watch "Cruise Ship Killers" on the Peacock streaming service, a justifiably brief television series that aired from 2020 through 2022. Here's a trailer for that show... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10119542/
OMG! I can't believe Paul put this video in the blog. It makes cruise ships look like dens of inequity with people hooking up right and left. That is not the case at all. Why do people like these Reality TV shows? Are we all weird?
Aboard Queen Elizabeth, one could go overboard on the food, go overboard on the booze, go overboard dancing, go overboard people watching or even go overboard writing blog entries. To otherwise worry about going overboard is, well, going overboard.
This afternoon, I would have loved to throw some people overboard--or at least their possessions. In violation of all the rules, many pairs of shaded lounges on Deck 12 (where B4 and I like to hang out) were covered with towels and books but no people. One half hour's absence before the deck steward clears that stuff away so that others can use the lounges--that's the rule. Not enforced. For someone like me who has to find something in the shade (skin cancer) to see all those shaded spots unused is a real aggravation. Nobody would do anything about it. Since it is a sea day and nobody is off the ship on excursions, everyone decided to reserve a lounge for the day whether they used it or not.
Maybe if I just tossed their books overboard...
Here are Pittsburgh based Queen's Grille dinner companions Lisa & Mike, ballroom dancers extraordinaire, on the Queen's Room dance floor, their preferred spot each evening of this and all their Cunard cruises--of which there have been and will continue to be many. Here's an example of perhaps going overboard: Mike brought seven pairs of shoes and together, for their amazing outfits, they traveled for these two weeks with six checked bags. They're serious. My wardrobe repeats itself every 4th day. I hate packing and i hate unpacking. But it would be nice to have choices in the closet when you are away. Lisa is my idol on this.
And there is this very British thing: Sequence Dancing.
Now, I ask you: Is that going overboard? I think it looks like great fun! I hope our friend James is reading the blog. As i have given up on Paul being willing to take a ballroom dancing lesson with me, i'm hoping to recruit James when we join him and Sam and a bunch of others on the Queen Mary for a crossing next June.
